Jake with Global Green USA

Jake Gyllenhall and Global Green USA President Matt Petersen visit Green Service Day at the Global Green USA launch of National Green Schools Initiative at Manual Arts High School on February 19, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Pictures by Iheartjakemedia.com

Milk empowers gay cinema

"To appreciate the achievements of Penn and "Milk" it helps to review a few key Hollywood movies that encapsulated their eras' prevailing attitudes and prejudices about gay men's identities and lives, focusing on how they depicted their characters' bodies and body language.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
In the Depression era, "gunsel" meant either a hired gun and/or a young, submissive homosexual. Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade sneeringly flings the pejorative at Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr.), the anxiously buttoned-up young thug working for Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet).
Enraged and humiliated by Spade's incessant needling, Wilmer raises his gun and, teary-eyed, tells Spade in a choked voice, "Get up on your feet! I've taken all the riding from you I'm gonna take! Get up and shoot it out!"

Soon after, Spade cold-cocks the poor sap, reducing Wilmer to an all-too-recognizable Hollywood archetype: the gay man as weak-willed and sneaky, the implied consequence of leading a double life.

Cruising (1980)
Al Pacino plays an undercover cop stalking a gruesomely savage gay serial killer who dismembers his victims. Employing a familiar pop-Freudian trope, the murderer turns out to be a dissolute Columbia University student (doing his thesis on the American musical theater, no less!) who never made peace with – surprise! – his disapproving father.

The movie tries to emphasize that this leather-clad milieu isn't representative of all gay culture, only one dark sub-strata of it. Yet "Cruising" inevitably reinforced an image of gay life as sordid, sex-obsessed and marginal.

My Own Private Idaho (1991)
This warmly funny, nonjudgmental reimagining of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," written and directed by Van Sant, takes place in the Pacific Northwest, where Scott (Keanu Reeves) and Mike (River Phoenix) earn their living as hookers.
Key image: In the opening frames, the camera lingers over Mike's face as he receives oral sex from a client, who then tosses two $10 bills on his bare chest. The sequence is as jarring, oddly funny and fearless as a Robert Mapplethorpe nude.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)
This movie significantly placed gay/bisexual characters in the American heartland rather than the usual big-city mean streets. The main characters first meet in 1963 as star-crossed bunkmates while herding sheep on horseback. Their decades-long romance is a classic love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name scenario, in keeping with the societal constraints imposed by the story's pre-Sexual Revolution milieu.
But although they hailed from wide-open spaces, the terse, vulnerable Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and the glibber, slicker Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) were trapped metaphorically in the celluloid closet. To a degree, the movie's period setting imprisons the characters in the retrograde Hollywood role of tragic, passive victims. Yet the searing integrity of the acting, capped by Ledger's towering performance, along with the visual lyricism and acute sensitivity of Ang Lee's film (Oscars for direction, adapted screenplay and soundtrack) make this a landmark in the history of cinema, gay or straight.Most memorable body language: Ennis slumped to the floor and pounding a wall in frustration after he and Jack go their separate ways.

Milk (2008)

Since the silent film era, we've usually associated great physical acting with the great screen clowns (Chaplin, Keaton). Penn has few, if any, peers among his contemporaries in using every fiber of his being to summon a character.
His Harvey Milk occasionally evokes some of Penn's past cinematic portrayals: the tortured muscularity of the grieving father in "Mystic River"; the blustery showmanship of rabble-rousing Willie Stark in "All the King's Men."

In "Milk," Penn conveys Milk's sinewy force of personality, whether crouching solicitously at a lover's feet, exhorting a crowd at a rally or dropping to his knees like a doomed opera diva as Dan White's bullets drain away his life.

"Milk" opens with archival black-and-white footage of gay men in Miami bars cringing and shielding their faces with their hands as they're being rounded up and herded into police paddy wagons. Penn's Milk has no need to hide who he is, and neither, by implication, does the audience. With tough words, a gently amused smile and an athletic gait, Penn's Milk empowers those around him and those watching him on screen".

Source: www.thestar.com

Method actors

"More than 100 Oscars have been won by Method actors, including the last two leading actor Oscars, which went to Daniel Day-Lewis and Forest Whitaker.

'Since 2000, around 75 per cent of Oscar winners have been Method actors', says Timoney.'So given that, Kate Winslet (who's been nominated five times before) is unlikely to win this year'.

'She puts in a good, solid performance but someone such as Meryl Streep is really in a different class – the training and system they go through in America tends to set them apart.'He also predicts a win for Mickey Rourke, 'although he's got tough competition against Sean Penn: both are Method actors'.

Despite such a good record, surprisingly few actors have adopted the technique.

According to Timoney: 'Only about one or two per cent of the acting industry actually use Method acting but if you look at who's in that group, it's usually all the top creative actors in Hollywood.'

He believes the approach is key to their success – and could be hindering the careers of British actors.

'It creates really in-depth, believable performances, which is exceptional acting. But in Britain they don't embrace it as much, which leaves them on the back foot because the Americans are leading the way with Oscar wins and performances.'

The Method, in which actors draw on their own experiences in portraying their characters, is derived from a system created by Konstantin Stanislavski and was popularised by Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York during the 1950s. [...]

He points to names such as Toby Kebbell, who went from small indie film Dead Man's Shoes:


to be cast opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince Of Persia, or Gerard Butler, a struggling actor until he moved to LA, who now commands up to £10million a picture. Hubbard denies there's a fundamental difference between the British and US approaches.

De Niro is so shy, it's hard to believe he plays these characters.

People who have big egos aren't able to suppress their own ego enough to play the character.

Great actors are not worried about how they're being perceived; it's more about playing the character truthfully".
Source: www.metro.co.uk

New pictures of "Scott Pilgrim"

"But director Edgar Wright (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ) will always get the benefit of the doubt, so if anyone can transform Cera from gawky SUPERBAD kid to a slacker/rocker who defeats his new gal's seven evil exes, it's him.

As he's been doing for a while, Wright has updated his Myspace blog with a new photo, this time of Cera (or some of him, at least) as Scott Pilgrim. Well, the hair and eyes seem fairly suitable".

Source: www.joblo.com

"There has been a lot of speculation on whether Jason Schwartzman is in fact starring in SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD. It started when a press release for the upcoming Universal comedy THE ADVENTURER'S HANDBOOK was released and claimed that Schwartzman's next film was SCOTT PILGRIM. That was quickly redacted though leading many to wonder whether it was a simple typo or accidentally leaked by Schwartzman's reps. Additional rumors were spreading that Schwartzman was playing the secret 7th boyfriend that Scott Pilgrim must defeat before winning the heart of Ramona. Now it looks like we have confirmation.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers.

Anna Kendrick as Stacey Pilgrim.

Edgar Wright, as I'm sure you're now aware, has been posting pics of the cast on his MySpace blog. Today's picture is very Schwartzman-esque and shows the actor holding a sign with a question mark on it. Yet that question mark looks curiously like a "7" as in, the secret 7th boyfriend that Scott Pilgrim must defeat before.... you get the idea". Source: www.joblo.com

Nick & Norah (Misguided Angel)

A musical video featuring stills from scenes of "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist", starring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings.
Song "Misguided Angel" by Cowboy Junkies.

Did you know that "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist"'s screenwriter Lorene Scafaria? She is the woman that climbs into Nick's Yugo car with her "retarded" lover and is interrupted by an inconvenient cramp when they're making out. Nick charges the couple $8.50, a little extra for the cleanup.

Emile Hirsch (Boogalooed it)

A musical video featuring stills and images of Emile Hirsch (at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week), etc.
Songs "Rave on" by The Vibrators and "How she boogalooed it" by The Beach Boys.

"Milk" scene, DVD extras

A scene from Gus Van Sant's "Milk," starring Sean Penn, James Franco, Emile Hirsch, and James Brolin. indieWIRE's coverage includes a report from the film's premiere last month in San Francisco and a new interview with the film's writer, Dustin Lance Black. The film opens on November 26th.
"Universal Studios Home Entertainment have announced the US DVD and Blu-ray Disc release of Milk on 10th March 2009. Sean Penn stars in this biopic based on the true story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California".

DVD
Anamorphic Widescreen
English and French DD5.1 Surround
English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles
Deleted Scenes
Remembering Harvey - Film clips and photos from the set of Milk illustrate stories and reflections from people close to Harvey: Cleve Jones, Daniel Nicoletta, Frank Robinson, Carol Ruth Silver, Anne Kronenberg and Allan Baird
Hollywood Comes to San Francisco - Cast and crew discuss the development of the script, making of the film and share stories from the set
Marching for Equality - People on hand for the shooting of the march sequences (including Gilbert Baker, Cleeve Jones, and Daniel Nicoletta) discuss the shoot and remember the marches of the 1970s

Blu-ray Disc
BD-50 Dual Layer
1080P Widescreen
English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles
Remembering Harvey
Hollywood Comes to San Francisco
Marching for Equality
BD Live - My Scenes Sharing
BD Live - Download Center: Deleted Scenes
Source: www.dvdtimes.co.uk